


Where You Go I Will Go (Where You Stay I Will Stay)

by cedarbranch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Guardian Angels, M/M, jon is an angel but in a fucked up and covered in eyes kinda way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24314044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarbranch/pseuds/cedarbranch
Summary: “Are you afraid?” Jon asks.“No,” says Martin.Jon’s eyes blink in a rippling motion, and for a moment, Martin thinks he catches a flurry of wings, numberless feathery things that form a shifting halo behind his back. “Good,” he says.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 45
Kudos: 283





	Where You Go I Will Go (Where You Stay I Will Stay)

**Author's Note:**

> these latest episodes referring to jon smiting monsters REALLY got me thinkin, bro. title from uhhhh a bible verse because everything i touch turns gay

Martin’s knee bounces rapidly in his chair. He smooths his shirt out for what must be the fiftieth time, making sure it’s tucked neatly into his waistband. He checks his phone. Only two minutes have gone by since he last looked.

He _needs_ to ace this interview. After all the shit he endured to get through school, it turns out that a degree in parapsychology isn’t _actually_ all that impressive to most employers, and if the Magnus Institute doesn’t want him, he doesn’t know where else he can go. He’s rehearsed for every possible interview question, but he can already feel the answers slipping away from him. 

This _has_ to go well. 

The secretary looks up. “Mr. Blackwood?” she says. “Mr. Bouchard will see you now.”

Martin nods. He stands up and allows himself to be led down through the halls, all the way to a door labeled with a neat placard with _Elias Bouchard_ engraved on it, and smaller print below it that reads _Head of the Magnus Institute._ Martin’s chest seizes. 

“Er, excuse me,” he says. “I-is this—does the head of the Institute normally do the interviews?” He’d been expecting a hiring manager or something of the like. This is _not_ going to help his nerves. 

The secretary smiles ruefully. “Yes, most of the time,” she says. “He’s very particular about how we run things here. Just don’t let him get in your head and it’ll be fine.” She knocks on the door. “Mr. Bouchard? I have Mr. Blackwood here to see you.”

The door swings open. “Thank you, Rosie,” says a man in a neatly-pressed suit. He’s at least half a foot shorter than Martin, but there’s something in the way he carries himself that makes Martin feel very small indeed. He smiles and beckons Martin inside. “Come in, Mr. Blackwood. I expect this won’t take very long.”

Martin swallows hard. He follows Bouchard inside, and the clunk of the door closing behind him sounds like the lid of a coffin falling shut. 

“Please, have a seat.” Bouchard gestures to the chair before his desk and sits down behind it. Martin sits. Bouchard steeples his hands on the desk. “Now,” he says. ‘I expect you know this already, but my name is Elias Bouchard. I am the current head of the Magnus Institute. We are an organization dedicated to the collection and investigation of supernatural accounts, most of which eventually come to reside in our archives. The current Head Archivist, Gertrude Robinson, is in need of a new archival assistant—and that’s where you come in.”

He outlines the duties of the position, all of which sound fairly standard, and asks Martin a few questions about his credentials and his reasons for coming to the Institute. Martin has his answers all ready, and even manages to deliver them without sounding too squeaky. Bouchard nods to all of them, his expression revealing nothing.

“How would you describe your feelings about the supernatural, Mr. Blackwood?” he asks. 

Martin freezes. “Er,” he says. What’s he supposed to say to that? He doesn’t want to look like an idiot, or some kind of conspiracy theorist, but then again, this is the Magnus Institute; it’d probably be an insult to say he doesn’t believe at all. He settles on, “I’m agnostic?”

Bouchard smiles at that. “Excellent,” he says. “I’m sure we’ll make a believer of you in no time. With that all out of the way,” he shifts a few of the papers on his desk, “it seems that you’ll fit in quite well. As for a starting date, how does Monday sound?”

Martin blinks.

“Yeah!” he says belatedly. “Monday’s perfect, er, thank you so much for meeting with me, it’s a real pleasure—”

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” Bouchard says, with a gleam in his eye that Martin chooses to interpret as welcoming. Martin jumps to his feet to shake his hand. Bouchard’s grip is just a bit too tight.

And just like that, he’s hired.

Martin stumbles out of the Institute, still more than a little dazed at how _easy_ it had been, but thrilled all the same. He has a real, actual job, with a salary and benefits and what seems like quite an interesting workload, if half the things he’s heard about the Magnus Institute are true. Now he just…

Martin stops at the base of the front steps. 

There’s a man standing at the edge of the street, looking right at him. When he sees Martin looking back, he starts to walk closer. It looks like he’s heading right towards Martin. Martin’s internal alarm bells clang, but he’s always been trusting—or maybe just bad at thinking on his feet—so he stays where he is. 

The man hurries up to him. “Did you get the job?” he asks. 

“Er,” Martin says. “Do I know you?”

“Did you get the job?” the man repeats.

“Yes,” Martin finds himself saying. As soon as the word is out, he wants to kick himself—why the hell would he tell a stranger that? Especially when he doesn’t know their motives! He moves to step around the man, but he steps to the side as well, blocking Martin’s path. Martin’s hand shoots into his pocket for his phone, just in case. 

“You have to be careful,” the man says urgently. “That place is not what it seems.”

Martin forces himself not to react. Maybe this guy is just one of the many people who’ve given statements to the Institute—touched by the supernatural, and paranoid as a result. For some reason, that thought makes it easier to breathe. The man is intense, but not threatening; he’s just looking out for Martin, that’s all. He’s just a well-intentioned stranger with eyes like a daydream. Martin can’t seem to look away from them. 

He’s not in any danger. 

The knowledge settles into his mind like a solid fact—this man will not hurt him. Martin just needs to reassure him a bit, and everything will be fine. 

“Okay,” he says, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. “I’ll be careful.” 

The man watches him closely. There’s something so sad about his expression—an ancient, aching tragedy that calls out from within. It’s not just concern, it’s _certainty_ ; he looks at Martin, and Martin feels like his fate has been set. 

Somehow, it still doesn’t scare him. His bones hum with a calm resonance. He just wants to ease this stranger’s pain, and if his word all it takes, he’ll give it. 

“I’ll be careful,” he says. 

The man nods. “Don’t trust them,” he says. “Especially not Bouchard. If something feels wrong, then run, and don’t wait to ask why.”

“Okay,” Martin says. 

“Promise me,” says the man.

“I promise?”

“Good.” The man shifts as if he’s going to reach out to Martin, but then thinks better of it, and backs away. Martin watches him walk down the road until the rush of traffic swallows him.

That can’t be a great omen as to how the job is going to go. 

Martin should probably be more concerned, but by the time he’s home, the strange encounter has melted away, to the point where he barely remembers it at all. He goes right back to being pleasantly surprised at his quick hiring. 

He digs out the package of chocolate truffles in his freezer to celebrate—he’s earned that much—but even as he sits down to relax, he does have the strangest sense that he ought to be cautious in this new job. 

After all, things aren’t always as they seem.

***

Martin absolutely cannot afford to be late to work.

In the few weeks since he started working, he’s always been very punctual, which should work in his favor, but if he doesn’t make it in—he checks his phone—ten minutes, he’ll be late. Just because he lives close to the Institute doesn’t mean he can sleep in. He should know that. This morning, though, his brain had gotten the better of him and allowed him to hit snooze one too many times. 

Martin hurries down the street, walking as briskly as he can without breaking into a run. He can make it. He can. 

He stops at the edge of the road and looks up at the traffic light. It’s red, and the blinking icon across the street invites him to walk across. He pulls out his phone as he steps over the curb. According to his weather app, it’s supposed to be sunny in the afternoon, but it smells like rain, and Martin’s not about to— 

He turns his head, and all he sees is the pair of headlights, blinding bright and barrelling towards him. He doesn’t even have time to scream. 

Something crashes into him. Everything goes white. The world freezes in place, and Martin can feel the vibration deep in his bones. It’s like a stone dropped into a pond—something chimes deep within him, and waves emanate from it, a slow ripple that works its way from his core to the very tips of his fingers and toes. Bells ring through his mind, deep and sonorous. He inhales deeply, leaning into the sound of what is surely death,

and opens his eyes. 

“Are you all right?” a man is asking, shaking his shoulders. “Can you hear me? Are you hurt?” 

“Yeah,” Martin says dazedly. “I-I mean, no, I’m not hurt, I—what happened?”

“You were almost hit by a car,” says the man. His face gradually comes into focus, with worried brown eyes magnified behind a pair of glasses. He cups Martin’s jaw, and Martin’s heart flutters for a moment before it registers that the man is taking his pulse. “I pushed you out of the way, but you’ve been, er… in shock?”

Oh, Jesus. “I-I’m sorry,” Martin stammers. “I’m fine, really.” He glances down, just to be sure he’s telling the truth, and it seems that he is; he’s jittery with adrenaline, but there isn’t a scratch on him. 

“Thank you,” he says, rather belatedly. 

The man smiles, like dappled sunlight and the rustle of a summer breeze. “Of course,” he says. His hand is still on the side of Martin’s neck. With shock-dulled senses, all Martin can feel is his touch—the longer they stay connected, the more his breath returns to him, calm soaking through him and anchoring him back into his own body. 

Martin can scarcely bring himself to speak. He wants to close his eyes and sink into the feeling, like a cat basking in the sun—but that would just be strange, and the man already looks concerned enough. “ _You’re_ not hurt, are you?” Martin finally asks. 

“No, I’m all right,” the man says gently. “Don’t worry about me.” He lets his hand drop, and Martin is seized with the absurd urge to grab it and put it back. Instead, he just stares at the man. It’s hard to look away. There’s something achingly familiar about him—not in his face, but in his presence, like the echo of every fantasy Martin’s ever had. It’s like waking up from a dream about someone and being unable to remember their face, but knowing that you loved them, the feeling lingering in your whole body, making it seem for a few minutes as if you’re still dreaming. Martin recognizes this feeling in his chest. He just can’t say why. 

“I’m Martin,” he blurts out. It’s all he can do not to say more. He wants to tell this man every detail about himself, from the darkest secrets to the tenderest of loves. He might already know it all. Martin would tell him anyway. 

“Hello, Martin,” the man says, half-smiling. “Do you need me to call anyone for you? I didn’t manage to catch the driver’s license plate, so I don’t know if this is a reportable offense, but if you have anyone you’d like to get in touch with…”

“What?” Martin asks. Call someone? Why would he—oh. Right. The average person might want some help after their near-death experience. Jesus, maybe this _has_ left him damaged, if it’s taking him this much effort to get his thoughts in order. “No, I’m fine,” Martin says. “I was just on my way to work. I really should get going.”

He doesn’t move.

“If you’re sure,” the man says, watching Martin carefully. “But do be careful.”

“I will,” Martin says. He would probably agree to anything this man suggested. He doesn’t look much older than Martin, but there’s something in the way he carries himself that radiates knowledge. It fills the air around him, a whispered promise of wisdom, that Martin should listen to him, Martin can trust him. 

“Be safe,” the man says softly. 

“I will,” Martin says again. 

The man takes a step back, and Martin’s heart jolts to see him go. “Wait!” he blurts out. The man stops, and Martin asks, “What’s your name?”

The man smiles again, quietly amused, like there’s an unspoken joke Martin isn’t getting. “You can call me Jon,” he says. 

Then he turns, and as soon as Martin blinks, he’s already walked away, gone from sight. 

The rest of Martin’s walk to the Institute is a blur. The flash of the headlights keeps replaying in his mind. For that split second, he’d been so certain that he was about to die—but oddly enough, that isn’t the sensation that’s stuck with him. Instead, he’s stuck on the lingering sensation of Jon’s hand on his shoulder, and the way he smiled. 

But the dreamlike feeling melts away with every passing second, and Martin can only flush at the memory of his own actions. Sure, the stranger was pretty, and he _had_ saved Martin’s life, but did Martin really have to go fawning over him for it? He’s just lucky he hadn’t done something really stupid like hug him. At least he had the excuse of a recent traumatic experience. Jon probably understood. 

Jon will probably forget all about him soon enough.

***

Martin notices the little things, now. The way warmth seeps into his palms when he’s holding a cup of tea, the dazzling fuchsia of the flowers outside his neighbor’s window, the way the spring air tastes when it hits his tongue. There are a million details he’s always taken for granted, and now, he can’t stop seeing them. 

“Do you ever think about what would happen if you died?” he asks Sasha one day, when they’re sitting together and stapling files. 

She gives him the side-eye. “I try not to,” she says, punctuating it with a _chunk_ noise from the stapler. “Bit morbid, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly it, though—nobody ever really thinks about it, do they? And then if something happens, it catches you off guard, and you’ll never know all the things you’ll never get to have again.”

Sasha sets down her papers. “Are you okay?” she asks. 

The world is an endless collection of small joys, and Martin can taste them all like drops of honey on the back of his tongue. In the daylight, everything is golden, until night falls and brings its uniform blackness, a crushed-velvet sky glittering with stars. He feels the weight of his own existence with every breath, and he treasures every moment of it.

He feels different. Touched in the head, maybe. But,

“I’m fine,” he says. 

“Are you sure?” Sasha asks, searching his expression. “Because… you know, I’m here if you need anything.”

“I’m fine, really,” Martin assures her. “Just had a bit of a scare the other day. It got me thinking, that’s all.”

Sasha resumes her stapling. “What kind of scare?” she asks. “No, wait—if it’s graphic, then don’t tell me.”

Martin smiles. “No, no. I just almost got hit by a car on my way into work. Someone ran a red light.”

Sasha’s eyes go wide. “Seriously? I’m so sorry, that kind of thing can really shake you up. Did you report it?”

“No. They drove away after, I don’t know how I would have,” says Martin. “It all happened too fast. One second I was walking, and then…”

A rush of air, and a humming vibration like a tuning fork being struck. The comforting warmth of arms around him. Rich brown eyes that he could drown in. A man with a voice like the roll of summer thunderstorms, or the wash of the rain itself, telling Martin to be safe.

“What’s that look?” Sasha asks, cutting through the memory. 

Martin blinks, the echoed weight of Jon’s gaze still clinging to the edges of his mind. “What?”

Sasha grins, gesturing at him with the stapler. “You’re blushing,” she says. “Now I’m really curious. What happened?”

Now that she’s pointed it out, Martin can feel the faint flush of heat in his cheeks. “Nothing much,” he says. “Someone saved me.”

“Oh, come on! You’ve got to give me more than that,” Sasha says with a laugh. “Man or woman? Or neither?”

“Man, I think.” 

“Knew it,” Sasha says, clicking the stapler in triumph. “Was he handsome?”

“Very,” says Martin. _Beautiful_ would be just as good a word. Jon was handsome in the traditional sense, from his waves of black hair to the gentle curve of his lips when he smiled, but there had been an energy about him that made it even more tangible; an otherworldly grace that Martin shivers to remember. It’s the wonderstruck feeling of cathedral bells chiming, of marble statues, of paintings splashed across the walls of caves from the pure desire to create, before art had a name. 

“Did you get his number?” Sasha asks.

Martin makes a face. “No. It wasn’t really… I dunno, that wouldn’t have felt right.”

“And why not?” Sasha asks. “Sounds like a perfect meet-cute to me.”

“Yeah, I know, it was just… he felt weird, okay? Not like in a creepy way,” Martin adds hurriedly. “But the whole thing was odd. He felt like… like more than just a person, you know? Him just _looking_ at me felt like the most important thing that’d ever happened to me.”

Sasha giggles. “Have you ever had a crush, Martin?”

“It wasn’t like that. It was like… I felt like I knew him, somehow, or he knew me, even though I’m positive we’d never met before. I felt like he could tell me my own life story if I asked him to.”

“Huh. You’re right, that is weird,” Sasha says. She smiles. “But you know, we do work at the Magnus Institute. If he was really _supernaturally_ good-looking, you could always make a statement.”

“I thought about it,” Martin admits. “But I don’t know what good would come of it.”

“You might be able to find him again,” Sasha suggests. “I’d say that’s good.”

“We do not get paid to stalk handsome strangers who saved my life,” Martin points out.

“Ah-ah. No stalking, no stranger. We’d just,” Sasha lowers her voice, “launch an investigation into Martin Blackwood’s suspected guardian angel.” She grins. 

Martin rolls his eyes. “We should get back to work,” he says.

“Aww, you’re no fun.”

Sasha doesn’t understand, that much is clear. Martin can’t blame her—he doesn’t think anyone could understand unless they met Jon, and it’s not like Martin is any good at putting it in words. How is he supposed to explain that touching Jon made him aware of every second of his life all at once, from the present moment to long-buried memories of childhood? How is he supposed to describe the peace that fell over him, as powerful as it was inexplicable? He couldn’t if he tried.

But the more Martin thinks about it, the more he thinks that Sasha’s joking description might not be too far off the mark.

***

One second Martin is asleep, and the next he is not.

His mind is fully awake, but his body is still heavy with sleep, weighted to the mattress. He breathes steadily, savoring the feeling and waiting to drift off again. But as he waits, something shifts. It’s a near-imperceptible change, not quite physical and not quite mental, but in that moment, Martin is certain that he is not alone.

He blinks his eyes open slowly. He’s facing the wall, where a faint orange glow from the streetlights outside falls in a square, mimicking the shape of the window. Within the panel of light is a dark silhouette. 

Martin pushes himself up and turns to look.

Perched on his window is a human shape. The darkness obscures most of its features, but Martin doesn’t have to see to know it’s Jon. If it were anyone else, Martin would have been frozen with terror by now, but he feels as calm as ever, his heart thumping a slow and drowsy beat in his chest.

This is probably a dream. 

“Hello,” Martin says sleepily.

As his eyes adjust, he can make out more of the figure. He was right; it is Jon, but he sits at a strange angle, looking back at Martin with eyes that shine in the dark like a cat’s. Martin can see his shape, but he _feels_ those eyes. Two human ones, and the winking glint of hundreds of others tucked all over his body. 

“Are you afraid?” Jon asks. 

“No,” says Martin. 

Jon’s eyes blink in a rippling motion, and for a moment, Martin thinks he catches a flurry of wings, numberless feathery things that form a shifting halo behind his back. “Good,” he says. “You don’t need to be.”

Martin yawns. “I know,” he says. 

Jon doesn’t respond. Martin watches him for a while, bleary-eyed, struggling to focus around his exhaustion. Jon’s hard to focus on. He looks like a person, mostly, but Martin can still feel the impression of something endless within him, just beyond what his eyes can see. 

“What are you?” he asks. 

“It doesn’t matter,” says Jon. “Go back to sleep.”

Martin nods. The motion quickly turns to the involuntary dip of incoming sleep, and time slows as his head falls back to meet the pillow. 

His sleep is deep and dreamless.

***

Martin knocks tentatively on Sasha’s door. “Come in!” she calls. 

Martin pokes his head inside. “Hey,” he says. “Are you busy?”

“I don’t have to be,” she says. “What’s up?”

“Do you… remember that conversation we had a little while ago?” Martin says tentatively. “About the guy who saved my life?”

Sasha perks up. “Did you find him?”

“Er. Sort of?” says Martin. “I was actually thinking I could… y’know, make a statement.”

“Oh. _Oh,_ ” says Sasha, her eyes widening. “So you weren’t kidding about him being supernatural, then?” Martin nods. “Okay. Wow. We can just do it in here, then, I’ve got a tape recorder.”

Martin lets out a slow breath. He’d been on the fence before, but it seems like giving statements can be cathartic, and God knows it’d be good to clear his head. Plus, if he can get other people looking into this on an official basis, maybe it’ll all start to make sense. 

He takes a seat in front of Sasha’s desk. She doesn’t laugh or tease him, which allows him to relax into the chair as she sets up her tape recorder. 

Sasha clicks it on. “Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding a near-death experience,” she says. “Statement begins.” She inclines her head to Martin.

Martin takes a deep breath, and he tells the story. 

He tries to capture the events and all their inexplicable intimacy accurately, even if it feels silly to say it out loud. Sasha, to her credit, doesn’t once smirk or raise her eyebrows. She just watches him intently. When he’s finished speaking, she clicks the tape recorder off and leans over her desk. “Do you mind if I ask a few follow-up questions?” she asks.

Martin shakes his head. “No, go ahead.”

“Do you believe in God?” she asks. 

“Going in for the hard-hitting ones first, are we?” Martin asks, half-smiling. “Erm. Give me a moment.” 

_Does_ he believe in God? He isn’t sure. He’s been thinking about it lately, of course he has—it’s hard not to, after very nearly finding out firsthand whether or not there’s an afterlife. He thinks that before all this, he would have said no. He was agnostic, and open-minded to the idea of a higher power, but he didn’t really believe in it. He wasn’t raised religious; he had no reason to believe.

Now, though… Now, he might have a reason. He doesn’t know how to explain something like Jon without using the word _divine_.

“I don’t know,” Martin finally says. “I might. I think I do, actually. I just don’t know if God’s, like, a _person_ , y’know? Maybe ‘God’ isn’t even the right word. Maybe it’s just a nebulous guiding force type of thing. But I do think there’s something out there, yeah.”

“Interesting,” says Sasha. “What about angels?”

“I think I believe in angels,” says Martin.

Sasha hums. “And demons?”

Martin takes a moment to think. “No,” he says.

Sasha blinks. “What? You mean you believe in angels, but not demons?”

Martin shrugs. “I just like to picture it that way,” he says. “I can’t prove any of this, so I might as well choose to believe in a prettier version of things.”

If there’s a God, then it would be easy to say that there should be a devil, and all the associated mythos. But there doesn’t _have_ to be. Martin prefers to think that there isn’t. Humans seem to come up with enough evil on their own; they don’t need any help. Maybe God is just here to guide people through the world that they’ve created, and make it a little gentler along the way.

“Would you believe in demons if you had proof?” Sasha asks.

Martin laughs. “I mean, if I had proof, then it’d be sort of hard to deny it, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” says Sasha. “I quite agree.” 

She smiles. 

Something stirs in Martin, a sharp violin-string note of tension that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

Her mouth doesn’t stop where it should. 

The corners of it extend too far. Martin watches it expand, a dawning sense of horror growing in his chest. Sasha’s eyes bulge out, her limbs bending at sick angles as she rises to her feet. She looms over him, and Martin’s brain finally catches up enough to jolt panic through his entire body.

He jumps up and scrambles backwards. Sasha cackles, a low and ugly sound. “You little protected ones are always such fun,” she says, and her voice is different, strange, like it belongs to someone else. “So content in your little bubbles. The whole world is rosy to you, isn’t it?”

Her head nearly touches the ceiling. Her skin stretches in all the wrong places and rips where it can’t bear the strain, contorting around knotted joints and lumps of bone. Her open wound of a smile doesn’t reach her bloodshot eyes. Martin swallows a scream and runs for the door. The handle rattles as he tugs in vain—it’s locked. Of course it’s locked. 

“You have no _idea_ what true fear is like,” Sasha says from behind him. Martin whips around. “I can teach you,” she whispers, and flexes her fingers, broken joints snapping menacingly.

This time, Martin does scream. She lunges in a flash of mangled limbs.

Everything is drowned in a roaring rush of air. 

Martin keeps his back pressed to the door until it subsides. A man has taken a defensive stance before him, arms out, looking up at Sasha. His long hair whips in the remaining breeze, and Martin _knows_ it’s— 

“Jon?” he says incredulously. 

“Not now,” Jon growls, and Martin shuts up. Jon addresses the thing that is very much not Sasha. “Leave this place, and do not come back.”

The grotesque Sasha grins. “There you are,” she says. “I wondered what it might take. I thought I might at least get to spill a bit of blood first, but your lot have never been much fun, have you?”

“I said, _leave_.”

“Oh, but we’re having a conversation, Jon,” Sasha chides him. “I must say, I’m not a fan of how you’re treating Martin. You’ve been far too protective, he’s never really gotten a taste for fear.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jon says lowly.

“To you,” Sasha says dismissively. “Letting him remember you was an interesting choice, though. That’s what caught my attention, really.” She leans in closer to Jon, her vertebrae popping out of order with the twist of her neck. “What kind of angel allows themselves to be known?”

“Martin,” says Jon. Martin startles. 

“Yeah?”

“Close your eyes.”

Martin does.

There’s a sound like the skies themselves tearing open. Light burns through his eyelids. The Not-Sasha snarls, and it tastes like blood in the back of Martin’s mouth. He covers his eyes with his hands. It does nothing to block out the hiss and screech, the clang of metal and bone, the clamor of dissonant bells and unholy screams. 

It ends with a thunderous crack that echoes in the ringing silence.

“You can open them now,” says Jon.

Martin peeks out from between his fingers. Jon isn’t visibly harmed, but the way he holds himself suggests injury, and there’s a discordant note beneath his voice where there’s usually harmony.

“I’m sorry,” he says tiredly. “I never should have let her get close to you, it’s my fault. I’ll make sure it doesn’t trouble you any longer.” He reaches out, but Martin grabs onto his wrist.

“Whatever you’re going to do, don’t,” he says. “I don’t want to forget.”

Jon blinks. “Martin, she was… that thing was evil. She would have killed you, I don’t want that memory to—”

“I don’t care,” Martin whispers. “I want to remember you.”

Jon stands before him, all ragged perfection, as heavenly and fearsome as a lightning strike made human. Martin has known him all his life. He wants to keep knowing him. He wants to know the true strangeness and horror of the world, if it means he gets to keep this one beautiful thing. 

Jon doesn’t break eye contact. He lowers his arm, and shifts so that Martin’s grip slides from his wrist to his hand. He laces their fingers together.

“All right,” he says quietly. 

He brings Martin home. As usual, he’s gone before Martin can even begin to say goodbye. But this time, Martin’s aware of it.

“Goodbye,” he says to the open air, and trusts that it will reach its intended audience.

***

Martin’s never been particularly devout. The thought of a God is almost enough to overwhelm him. Until now, love is the only thing he’s ever held as sacred.

But now there’s Jon, with his presence like a new shade of gravity and the way he looks at Martin with such unflinching adoration. His existence raises so many new questions, and yet… he fits into the existing paradigm well enough. 

Maybe Martin was right, before, about what counts as sacred. 

He doesn’t go to church. He doesn’t spend too much time thinking of God—if he-she-they are out there, they don’t need the validation of his belief. He doesn’t need to change the way he lives; he’s already a good person, or at least he thinks he is, and he doesn’t want to worry about an afterlife quite yet. Besides, he hasn’t heard any specific references to God yet, or seen them in the flesh. He’ll focus on what he knows to be true. 

So he finds a quiet place to sit and bow his head, and he sends his gratitude upwards.

***

Martin has trouble sleeping now. The darkness makes him twitchy, and it takes hours for him to drift off. When he does manage to, his sleep is plagued with nightmares, neverending visions of the thing that used to be Sasha. He can still see the jerky motions of its broken-bent limbs when it lunged for him, its chilling smile filled with misshapen teeth. 

After the incident, as he’s begun to mentally refer to it, he has the same dream every night for a week. Even when he wakes up, his chest heaving, heart pounding at his ribs, he can never be too sure that the real world is any safer. The nightmares are bad, but the promise that more such horrors might be waiting just outside his bedroom door is worse.

So he tries his best to sleep.

And on the tenth night since the dream first appeared, it changes. 

_Lightning splits the sky in two. Martin’s trainers slap against the pavement, splashing in the water that streams down the road. His socks are soaked through. He stumbles to a halt just long enough to fumble his glasses off and wipe the rainwater from them, but as soon as he starts to run, the droplets obscure his vision all over again._

_Wind tosses at the treetops around him. Thick branches bend and groan. Martin covers his head with his hands as he dashes past a looming willow, whipping its ropelike branches as if to grab him and pull him close. His mum will be furious with him. He wasn’t meant to go too far down the road, but it had been so lovely and warm, he had skipped all the way down to the park without a second thought. He’d been too busy in the sandbox to notice the first raindrops darkening the ground._

_Martin runs faster. The storm seems to respond in kind, hurling sheets of rain down to the street, where they sting at his cheeks and blur his vision. He can barely see the bridge up ahead, but he can make out its outline; it’s an old stone thing, with grass on either side of the pavement that runs across it. The river below is swollen with floodwater, lapping its way up the banks._

_Martin races up to the bridge. He runs along the side, where there’s no danger of passing cars, trying not to look down at the churning waters below._

_There’s an ear-splitting crack of thunder. Martin starts violently—his foot slips on a slick patch of mud, and he flails wildly for a moment, but it’s too late. His stomach drops. The ground slips out from beneath him._

_He falls through open air._

_His mind has barely caught up with his body when the water crashes over him. It’s a full-body shock of icy cold. He screams, and water floods eagerly into his mouth, garbling the sound. It closes over his head, and as much as he thrashes, he sinks down, down, down. His chest aches. His waterlogged clothes drag at his limbs. He struggles not to breathe in, fighting the need for oxygen that will not come, but he needs it, he can taste the water as it sinks into his lungs—_

_Something grabs him by the front and wrenches him from the depths._

_Martin’s body hits the riverbank hard. He coughs out a mouthful of water, then another, and another. He shudders against the solid ground, barely managing to look up. His glasses are gone, and through the haze of rain, he can barely make out his savior. The light shines around them, and it’s almost like the sun itself crouches down to touch Martin’s face._

_“Are you hurt?” asks a voice made of plucked strings and birdsong._

_Martin coughs again, and slowly pushes himself up on his elbows. “Who’re you?” he says shakily._

_“You ought to be more careful,” says the stranger. Martin can hear a smile in their—his?—voice, and he feels his own lips curl into a hopeful imitation. He wipes his face. The chill is already falling away from him, replaced with an even warmth that wraps around him like a blanket._

_“I’m Martin,” he says._

_“Hello, Martin,” says the stranger, definitely smiling. “You should run along home now.”_

_Martin nods, unable to look away. The light changes, and in the flare, he catches a glimpse of endless rings circled around themselves. But as quickly as he notices it, it’s gone again, leaving him with the stranger’s gentle light and impression of a smile. Martin’s chest swells with a joy he can’t contain, and tears well up in his eyes. He’s safe now. Whoever this person is, they’ll never let Martin fall._

_He launches himself forward into the stranger’s arms and squeezes them tight. “Thank you,” he chokes out._

_“Oh!” they say. “Of course. I’m always here.”_

_Something soft and downy brushes against Martin’s back, and the stranger rises, cradling Martin in their arms._

_“Now, let’s bring you home,” they say._

_And they do._

_Martin stands on his front doorstep with no glasses and sopping wet clothes. His mother shrieks at the sight of him._

_When she asks him what happened, he can’t tell her. He doesn’t know._

_He doesn’t remember._

When Martin wakes up, his face is wet with tears. 

He can almost feel the brush of a gentle hand across his cheek. He doesn’t dare to open his eyes.

***

When Martin’s dreams jolt him awake and he can’t fall back asleep, he lays in the darkness and listens to the sound of his own breathing. Sometimes he stays still. Sometimes he turns over, and a subtly shifting shape is waiting for him in the window.

“I’ve been dreaming about you,” Martin tells Jon one night. 

“I know,” Jon whispers. “We’ve met many times.” Moonlight bends around him, illuminating the space around him in a pale white glow, but always hiding his features in shadow. Except for the eyes, that is. They tremble and blink at Martin from the suggestion of hands, arms, a face, circling in wheels of incomprehensible sight. 

“Why am I supposed to forget?” Martin asks. Jon doesn’t answer; he never does. Martin doesn’t really need him to. He can understand why such knowledge would need to remain hidden away. There’s a more appropriate question, and that’s— 

“Why did you let me remember?” 

“You asked,” says Jon.

Martin shakes his head. “Not the first time. Not after the car. Why did you let me remember that?”

Jon is quiet for a while. Martin waits. Time is a slow ooze from one small eternity to the next, or maybe it’s not moving at all.

“I can be… selfish,” Jon finally says.

A shadow curves; moonlight refracts. Wings fold and converge. The half-sight of it sears into Martin’s mind, and he winces as he looks away. “I’m sorry,” says Jon. “You should try not to look.” 

“It’s hard not to,” Martin replies. “You’re beautiful.”

It doesn’t even occur to him to be shy, stating it so plainly. It’s just the truth, and Jon knows it just as well as he does.

Jon slides down from the window. He still doesn’t come close enough to touch, but he kneels down on the floor, resting his head on Martin’s bed so they’re at eye level. 

“You’re beautiful, too,” he says softly. 

Martin smiles to himself, blinking sleepily. “Thanks,” he says. “I’m glad you’re here, you know. It’s nice to see you when my life’s not in danger.”

“It never is,” says Jon. “Not while I’m here.”

Martin can’t help but believe him.

***

Martin does not expect Jon to kiss him back.

The first time is automatic, not as much impulsive as instinctive. Jon sits at his bedside, and Martin moves closer, until the shadows clear from Jon’s face, and there he is, radiant in the moonlight and impossible to resist. Martin kisses him. It’s the most at peace he’s ever felt. 

It’s not the last time it happens.

Sometimes Jon is there in the day, when Martin is working, or out in the shops, or when he’s home relaxing. He’s always there, really. It’s just a question of when he’s a sight, and when he’s only a feeling, a subtle, foreign comfort that settles within Martin’s chest. Either way, it’s nice to have him there. 

It’s nicer when he’s tangible, though, because then Martin can kiss him. 

Jon kisses back every time, soft and reverent, like Martin is the holy one between the two of them. Martin sinks his fingers into Jon’s hair and savors the taste of salvation. There is love here, more than Martin knows what to do with. He tells Jon as much.

“I know,” Jon says softly. “I feel it.”

“Do you?” Martin asks.

Jon runs his thumb across Martin’s cheek. “I was made to love you,” he whispers. “But not like this.”

“Is this better?” Martin whispers back. 

This time, Jon kisses him. 

Martin kisses back.


End file.
